The Russian space industry is plagued by such a great number of problems that the government cannot afford to leave it to its own devices, Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin said.

"Constant [government] assistance is needed to ultimately break the vicious circle of accidents and failures," Rogozin, who oversees the defense and aerospace sectors, said in an interview with the Kommersant daily published on Thursday.

On August 4, Rogozin heavily criticized Russia's space industry on Monday, lambasting technical incompetence and calling for structural reform across the whole sector.

On July 2, a Proton-M rocket, carrying three satellites for the Glonass positioning system, fell to the ground in flames shortly after blasting off from Kazakhstan's Baikonur space center.

The incident was the latest in a series of setbacks for Russia's space program, which has been blighted by the loss of rockets and satellites, and a large corruption scandal around the Glonass program.